Let's have equal treatment for political insiders, by Pierre Lemieux

Politics is at least as important as business. Citizens must be as well protected from politicians and bureaucrats as investors are from directors and executives. Consequently, the rules of governance that apply to business firms should also apply to public life. This is a must if we want to preserve citizens’ confidence in the political process. What would such a world look like?

Politicians and bureaucrats would be forbidden to share insider tips of the kind that led to Martha Stewart’s current problems. A politician would be obliged to broadcast any inside political information he has before he uses it for any political manoeuvre.

Of course, politicians would also be forbidden to make any selective disclosure, i.e., disclosure of any “material fact” that could impact on the public’s opinion about him and his political value.

Let’s stop political greed.

There is also the crucial issue of trading after hours. Any political transaction after Parliament is closed (like caucus meetings or other ways of trading votes) is nothing but a breach of trust against the voting public. A political party suspected of this infraction would, like Sun Life, be threatened with such crippling penalties that it would be willing to settle for $200-million.

“The Liberal party is fully co-operating with the authorities’ investigation” is a statement that we would hear time and time again.

Of course, the government would publish an annual report where all transactions would be transparently reported. Relegating information to the footnotes, such as the Enron annual report did, would be considered a crime. Ministers would have to personally sign, and vouch for, all budgets they propose to Parliament. MPs would have to personally sign, and vouch for, every law they vote. Senior bureaucrats would have to personally sign, and vouch for, every regulation they enact. This covers 5,000 pages of legal gibberish every year, but voters’ trust and the integrity of our political market have no price.

The Auditor-General of Canada is a nice and useful fixture, but he remains a bureaucrat who could meet the same fate as former privacy commissioner George Radwanski, should he run afoul of his political bosses. So, outside auditors would be hired.

The new rules of governance would mandate independent directors in the Cabinet. A couple of libertarians there would not be a bad idea: They would insure that the public interest is promoted, as opposed to special interest groups and the statocrats’ own power.

The Ontario Democratic Commission (ODC) would assign tens of bureaucrats to monitor all this. In Quebec, the Regulator is now called the Financial Markets Authority (with a capital “A”). His Majesty the Regulator would intervene any time it had a hunch that “the public interest” was not served. The Regulator would watch closely what is being done in the U.S., and just imitate it, with the normal delay of 10 to 20 years.

The ODC would issue work bans in the political market. Every politician suspected of breaking the new rules of governance would be sued by the ODC before the ODC, forced to settle out of (kangaroo) court, and banned from any political function for 10 years. (After all, they do it in France. Are we less democratic?)

There is no reason why, in 10 years time, we shouldn’t have as many Canadian MPs in jail as business executives. It’s time to make sure that politicians and bureaucrats are accountable, and that all citizens-shareholders face a level playing field.

Let's Have Equal Treatment for Political Insiders by Pierre Lemieux

Let's Have Equal Treatment for Political Insiders
by
Pierre Lemieux